• The Republican bill to modify the DREAM Act so it only benefits those undocumented youth who pursue military service is a particularly sneaky bit of genius. I don’t think it will stop the DREAMers from pursuing accountability, however.

• So much for those celebrated Taliban peace talks: the prisoner swap seen as central to a deal has faltered, while Hamid Karzai fears getting get out of the solution, and therefore wants his own talks.

• Yes, a lot of the inequality in the country comes on a pre-tax basis. But there are ways to deal with that as well, particularly in the corporate governance arena.

• Abigail Field does a deep dive on the Masto letter on the foreclosure fraud settlement. Incidentally, the “insignificant” robo-signing we’d be releasing from liability in a settlement represents the smoking-gun evidence of financial fraud that so many elites want to convince people doesn’t exist. The judicial system is trying real hard to deep-six this evidence, but the foreclosure defense community won’t stop throwing this in the faces of the elites, even with a settlement.

• Dan Burton, who survived a large primary in 2010 with a whopping 30% of the vote, won’t try this time. With the whiffs of scandal about to erupt, Burton may soon get joined on the sidelines by Michael Grimm and Buck McKeon.